Gillian's Post

Intercultural Experience Blog Post: Exploring Sub-cultures
Gillian Tomasini
Event: Open Shop Night-The Hub Bicycle Co-op
 

On Thursday February 7th, I attended an “open shop” night at The Hub Bicycle Co-op on Oak street. These open-shop nights are held from 7-9pm on various days throughout the month at different bike shops around Minneapolis. The open shop nights are designed to be a safe and comfortable space for women and transgender people to ask any questions they have about bike maintenance and mechanics and not feel intimidated or silly in a heavily male-dominated business. Instead, the main goal of these nights is to educate women and transgender people  about bicycle mechanics  in order to boost their sense of empowerment and self efficacy.

I decided to use this experience as my intercultural experience because I am interested in exploring the arena of sub-cultures and navigating how sub-cultures can serve to support and foster various factions of society. Sub-cultures are not necessarily linked to any particular racial or ethnic background and can therefore attract members from a much larger pool of people. The cycling sub-culture in the Twin Cities is not linked to any one specific religious or ethnic background although it is heavily dominated by Caucasian males in their 20s and 30s.

In my case, attending my first open shop night at the Hub gave me insight into a culture that is technically open to all people but that is stunted in its growth by limitations like a lack of affordable gear, gender segregation, and a lack of widely available bicycle education.  These barriers mean that people of lower socioeconomic status, women, transgender people, the elderly, and people of color are often not included in the bicycle community of Minneapolis. In addition, there is a fair amount of “snobbery” for lack of a better term that unfortunately helps define bike culture in Minneapolis. This “holier than thou” attitude makes cycling inaccessible to many people by making the sport/pastime just plain intimidating.

In my personal life, I ride my bike as a means of daily transportation, exercise and fun, but  have recently become more interested in learning about bike mechanics and racing bikes and have made the decision to start attending open shop nights in order to build connections and community along with building my technical skill set.  I have always known that a sub-culture regarding biking exists in the Twin Cities but I am just starting to become involved and carve out a place for myself within this culture. To me, attending the open shop night seemed like the best way to start:

I arrived at the Hub a little after 7pm on a freezing cold February night.  It had taken a little bit of effort to pull myself out of my house and get on my bike to make it to the shop because of the weather and because I felt intimidated by my lack of knowledge about bike mechanics and was anxious at the foreignness of what I was about to do. Overlying all of these feelings however was a desire to start learning, start talking with people, start amassing knowledge and skills. So I pushed open the door and wheeled my bike inside the shop. Two female mechanics stood behind the counter and were helping two other women work on their bicycles. Everyone turned to greet me as I walked in and found a stand for my bike. Immediately, I felt more at ease but not quite comfortable.

One of the mechanics came over to me and we began discussing what I wanted to work on that night. We decided I would work on cleaning the bike first since it had accumulated so much grime from being ridden in the winter. Then we would adjust the brakes and check the rest of the bike for wear and tear. I was introduced to many different kinds of bike tools and got to play with bike grease for a while. One of the things I like best about working with bikes is being able to get my hands dirty and not having to worry about it.

While I worked to clean my bike, we chatted about weather conditions and compared notes on winter biking.  The mood in the shop was relaxed and the female mechanics made it easy to ask questions and didn’t fault us or scoff at us for not knowing the simplest maneuvers.  The women clearly enjoyed working on bikes and helping others learn about mechanics and I was glad to have found a way to learn about bike mechanics that wasn’t overwhelming or intimidating. Instead, I saw emphasis placed on female/transgender empowerment, acceptance of all abilities and orientations, trial and error, as well as hands on learning. When I asked for help, the women favored guiding me rather than flat-out showing me what to do. They let me use the tools, take my time and make mistakes. I appreciated the fact that the women were so patient and while I may have felt like an outsider going into the experience, I gradually became more and more at ease as time went on and was able to learn a few new things.

After a couple hours, the shop night ended and I left after thanking the women who had helped me and promising to come back the next time. Going to this open shop night was incredibly important for me and I came away from the whole experience with a good feeling. Gender inequality is a huge problem plaguing the cycling community in Minneapolis (and elsewhere as far as I can tell) and a very frustrating point of contention for me. Typically,women are hired to work sales in the front of the store and men are hired to work mechanics in the back of the store. Whenever I need to take my bike into a shop to get it looked at or to ask someone about parts, accessories etc...I  make sure that I have my questions ready beforehand in order to not appear silly in front of what will surely be a male dominated staff. Too many times have I gone into shops and felt like my questions were stupid or not worth the mechanics time. Or I’ll go into a shop and be mostly ignored until I go up to someone and ask for help. Either situation is alienating for someone who is trying to learn about bikes and become involved in bettering the community.

Although I feel that many of the preconceived notions I have about bike culture in the Twin Cities still stand (snobbishness, inaccessibility, gender inequality etc..), attending this shop night helped me I realized that the culture is opening up and making huge efforts to become accessible to larger populations of people no matter their race, sexuality, gender and socioeconomic background. If I had never gone to the shop night and made a little bit of an effort to ask questions, I might still be thinking that the bike community is rigid in its exclusion of others. Biking is being pushed as a sustainable and “green” method of transportation and the market for cycling infrastructure in cities across the country is booming. There will always be those people who want to keep biking separate from the masses but realistically, I believe this will become a smaller and smaller group over time.

I feel that even though I still have a lot to learn about bike mechanics and culture, I am making small, measurable steps towards reaching a goal that will continue to evolve over time. The atmosphere in the shop helped me realize that there is a place for me in this community as long as I feel passionately about being involved and learning. I have since gone to several other shop nights around the Cities and even got a job in a shop myself! I encourage people I meet (especially women and transgender folk) to attend these shop nights and bolster their own confidence with biking. I know it’s helped me and will continue to do so in the future.